Guild Wars 2

Before I get started, let me list some of my credentials. In the game Runes of Magic. I was the highest physical attack (Top rated DPS) Rogue/Knight for about a year and a half. My guild had many “world firsts” in multiple dungeons of that game. From there, I moved onto League of Legends. I played for about 2 years and reached an elo of 2206. Which is rated in the top 350 players. I put anywhere from 10-13hrs a day into gaming and I am very dedicated to it.

During this article, I will be going into my experience with the game, some of its strong points, and some of its weak points. This is not a rage thread. Nor is it a way to propose future changes to the game. It’s more about my personal opinions of these topics and how they make me feel on a weekly bases.

I joined Guild Wars 2 during the second BWE. I think I got around 6 hours of sleep that entire weekend. Needless to say, I was obsessed. Throughout my MMO “career” I have always rolled a Rogue/Assassin/Thief type class. Without a doubt, my first GW2 character was a female Norn thief. That weekend, I would try to clear maps. When that got tiring, I got myself into crafting and playing around on the Trading Post. A few things absolutely amazed me and those were: Crafting was fairly simple. The trading post was unlike any other trading post I have ever dealt with. Having an option to place an order for something was very interesting to me. The World of Tyria was breath-taking, backed with a very intriguing story line. From 1-43 I never ran into a bugged NPC or event. Aside from running dungeons and WvWvW, I believe I experienced most of the solo content that was available. I was shocked at how stable the game was. It seemed 100% playable and ready to go. After this beta, I decided it was time to pre-order my copy. I had access to the other beta events but I decided not to participate because I didn’t want to get too far in the game before it was actually released.

Up came the release. Since I had chose the same path as when i played in beta, I breezed through the maps and personal story line up to 43. I wasn’t worried about dungeons, I just wanted to hit 80. I picked up Leather worker and Weaponsmithing also and did that when I got burned out from clearing maps, although that was incredibly difficult with the first issue I’m about to discuss. With a flawless working Trading Post in all of the previous beta events, something happened between then and release. For almost 2 weeks the Trading Post was down for maintenance. This greatly held back the ability to craft; however, many people used chat to buy materials they needed. That was a temporary solution. Although frustrating, it was tolerable.

Eventually, the Trading Post was fully operation and back in business. I made a good amount of profit selling level 50 rare leather armor. Buying the mats from the auction house, I was making about 10s a sale. Selling an item about every 15-20 minutes or so. With the money I was making, I took both of my crafting skills up to 400 and crafted myself my first full exotic armor set (Berserker’s) and 2 daggers. I had been using dual daggers my whole level 1-80. It was the rogue in me. Switching between dual pistols and short-bow on the secondary.

1/4 Continued Below

With my full exotic set complete, I finally decided it was time to try out the dungeons. I headed for the first dungeon on this list, thinking it would be the easiest. Ascalonian Catacombs, Story mode. The group I had was a random, pick-up group. At the time I thought we wouldn’t have an issue because I was really ahead in gear. First room, 2 people open up 2 different caskets spawning 2 ghosts. Our whole party instantly wipes. I literally took one shot from a mob and was dead before I couldn’t even finish saying the words, “Oh god”. I was a level 80, wearing the best armor available in the game, in a level 30 dungeon and I hit the floor faster than a sack of potatoes. It was at this time that I realized.. Dodging is very important and unless you are running some sort of beef (toughness or vitality) melee range is probably the worst place for a thief to be. Our group eventually made it through and cleared the dungeon but my comfort in my new exotic armor just took a giant downfall.

After dying many many times on my first dungeon run, I decided maybe I should craft an off-tank set of armor. I really didn’t want to give up on dual daggers, but running dual daggers with glass cannon armor in dungeons was very nonviable. To the crafting station I went and made myself a full Knight’s exotic set giving me power, precision, and toughness. I chose Superior Rune of the Wurm, which gave me 160 vitality, +6% critical damage, and +3% damage. This set was more of a balanced set. Not taking too much away from my damage and giving me a bit more survivability. This set-up worked pretty well in dungeons and really helped against a lot of AOE mobs. I was satisfied.

I had held back from doing anymore dungeon runs for a bit. Mainly because I didn’t want to do them before my friends did them. We were planning on doing most of them together. While waiting for them to get up to 80, I farmed a lot of bloods and ectos. I turned most of it into profit and helped a lot of my guild members with leveling their crafting and such. We made it into CoF and I was having a really tough time in dual dagger spec. I felt as if (and still do) I’m being forced into playing ranged thief in dungeons. Even with dodging as many attacks as I could and trying to time my evades, I still went down a lot. I wasn’t comfortable with this at all. All of my utilities were only beneficial to myself. I was only bring DPS to the group and I could barely do that from melee range.

With the money and extra time I had, I decided to roll a warrior. A warrior brings so much more utility to a group with regens, tanking ability, and buffing allies power. Also, I was very disappointed with the looks of the leather armor and thief weapons that you can get with dungeon tokens. In my honest opinion, there are only two leather sets that are appealing to me: Duelist and Krytan (Cash Shop). Myself and pretty much every ranger/thief/engineer I have talked to, all agree that all the leather coats really limit a character; as there is only 2 sets that do not have coats (listed above). So I craft-leveled the warrior to 40 with about 10g and mats I had left over from my thief. From there I ran CM Story over and over again. Just as I hit 76, the first dungeon “change” was implemented. I logged back on, got another group for CM story and cleared first and second boss no problem. When we got to the room that spawns many adds right after the second boss (before heading to the basement), our party wiped. Followed by another 4-5 times after that. Finally we got past it, clearing the the dungeon in about 2 hours. Our rewards.. definitely not worth the time or effort. We paid probably 4 times the reward in repairs. Plus, the trip to and from the dungeon, which is quite hefty depending on which part of the map you are on. To this day, I have not gone back into CM and I do not plan to return ever in the future. So, I crafted 76-80 and got the warrior all suited up with exotics. I now favor playing it more than my thief. Although, it is nice to go back and play the thief if our group needs more DPS instead of another tank. I just feel like I’m doing so much more for my group as far as contribution goes. Also, I can farm the T6 nodes on both characters, which is also a plus.

With the dungeons being “nerfed”, a lot of my guild members lost interest in the game. Some haven’t logged back on since that day. I tried and argued with them, telling them that there were a few dungeons that were really easy and needed to be fixed. I almost felt to some degree that I was begging for them to stay around a play through it. Some of the debated coming back, some of them didn’t. Hey, I tried my best.

2/4 Continued Below

My guild went from small to smaller. With about 3-4 active members for about 3-4 days. During this down time, I thought I would try WvWvW for the first time. I picked a random borderland and queued up. Upon entering the map, I was greet with a chat box being spammed by people shouting orders and down talking other players. I ignored chat for a bit and poked around trying to pick up the mechanics of the WvW system. It didn’t take long (about 2-3hrs) to learn how everything worked and how the current meta of the process should be played. This was last week, we had pretty even match ups and it was actually quite enjoyable. On top of that, the Karma/Gold/Exp rewards are pretty good. Everything seemed really put together and I was very satisfied with that rotation. A few days passed and I really got pulled into WvW. It was pretty much all I was doing while I waited for a fix for the dungeons. I had earned enough karma to buy my first exotic karma item (Power, Toughness, Vitality shoulders for my warrior).

A new rotation began and I was eager to play against some new competition. I entered the map just as we were working on taking an enemy tower. We successfully took over the tower. Not bad for the first achievement of the day; except moments later there was a “spy” that threw down 2 rams and told people to take tower supplies to build them. One of the more major issues in WvW at the moment. You see, with free server transfers on a 24 hour limit, “spies” can transfer onto enemy teams and basically sabotage what they have worked for to complete. I’m assuming this is especially effective on the first day of a rotation because if a team can get 2-3 orbs in the first 5-6hrs it pretty much ruins WvW for the rest of the week. Yes, you can take back orbs and try to make a recovery, but why should you have to make a recovery from something that shouldn’t even be allowed? I’m not really talking about balancing here. I’m talking about giant flaws in the system that can basically erase what you just spent 2-3hrs trying to obtain. You can spend quite awhile trying to take a tower and when people don’t realize/purposely take supplies from towers it hurts your ability to defend that tower. There is no forced tutorial instructing players about how the actual basics work. For example, buying siege equipment, the proper places to get supplies from (supply camps), and how to fortify a tower. With hundreds of new players entering WvW daily, it makes it incredibly hard to make sure people are all on the same page and working towards the same achievement, instead of spamming skills at red names and red bars of health. Even most of the Commanders are running around aimlessly. From my 8-10 days in WvW, I have found maybe 2-3 Commanders across 2 borderlands that are actually getting work done. The rest of them either never say a word in chat or have idea on how to even command people as to what they should be doing. Coming near the mid to end of a rotation you see people jumping ship and saying in chat, “I’m going to the winning server, this server is bad.” They are free to do so at no cost or no penalty, increasing the odds in the favor of the enemy team even more. Another issue that would be fixed if they stopped the free server transfers. These are only some of the flaws in the system, many of other exploits and unfair advantages have been reported but as I said this is not the place for that.

Tuesday, the 25th, ArenaNet released some promising patch notes that almost made me tingle inside with happiness. At last, after waiting over a week, good news came with a new system for dungeon rewards. I immediately logged on and hit Ascalonian Catacombs Explorer Path 2. Our group did really well with no wipes and only a few downed players. Our run lasted about an hour, everything seemed just right.. Until.. Our rewards came up and I only received 15 tokens. One member of the group picked up 45, two members received 20, and only one member of our group was rewarded with the full 60 tokens. Since one member in the group did receive the full 60 tokens, that rules out the “quickness of the run” diminishing return. Also, since I haven’t ran a dungeon in over a week, that rules out the “multiple runs in a single day” theory. I decided maybe it was just a fluke or a bug, so I headed to Citadel of Flame Explorer Mode Path 2. A clean and clear run that lasted about 1h15m. Upon completion I received 6. Yes, that is right, not 60 tokens, 6 tokens. So, the system is not only still broken, it’s even worse than it was before.

3/4 Continued Below

I sit here, even as I write this, constantly wondering what exactly am I supposed to do to further my experiences in this game. I’ve tried to wait it out and be patient. I’ve leveled other characters. I’ve tried dealing with the WvW flaws, which are tolerable until a certain point, but usually ends up with me spending lots of gold and leaving with a frustrated state of mind. I can keep doing dungeons, but if I am making 6-15 tokens per run, it is going to take me at least 93 runs to complete a set of armor and I don’t even want to think about how many runs it will take to get enough items for the legendary. sPvP isn’t an option since most of my guild decided to call it quits until the dungeon reward system is fixed. I’m trying to stay strong, trying to pull guildies back into the game. I enjoy playing this game very much. When everything is fixed and the flaws are ironed out the game would be even more addicting than it is now. I just hope it is sometime soon before my enjoyment/patience factor runs out.

I’d like to first off thank you for reading my post. I’m sure some of you are going through the same frustrations I am. I just wanted to share my experience in Tyria and hope to keep more players playing for a great looking future. Again, I appreciate your time.

-Sphynx

4/4 Finished

I read the entire series of OP posts. A very good read for sure. Thank you for putting the time into writing it. It sounds like you had a heck of a good time for well over 100 hours of entertainment. Not bad, considering the price.

Unless you change your reward-centric mentality, you’ve pretty much gotten all you can get out of the game, IMO. All in all, I’d say you got your money’s worth. Long-term, the game simply isn’t for hard-core raiders who expect some kind of tangible, meaningful rewards that fall in line with some presumed risk vs reward standard.

I read your entire post as your were posting it.

Only thing I have to say is that you qualify completely as an impatient gamer. The fact that they are rolling out fixes for these issues, and have changes set down in stone for the future (no more free server transfers) that would alleviate others should prevent you entirely from complaining about the issue in the first place.

Incompetence in WvW will never go away. Anet should never employ any sort of mandatory training. This is not a professional army, it’s a video game. You don’t like it? Compensate by being proportionally more awesome.

Dungeon rewards are being tweaked and tweaked again to try and balance appropriate rewards against exploitative gamers and farmers. Don’t fret, son, they’ll get it right sooner or later. Thing has only been out for like a month.

Just because your guild isn’t around anymore doesn’t mean sPvP is lost to you. You are able to tag with multiple guilds. If you want to participate in it, find a group of people to do that with. Not having an organized team =/= fundamental game flaw.

The only thing I resonated with here was the way you described your Thief. You said you felt forced to play him a certain way in Dungeons, which I don’t think is right. You should be able to play a spec you want to and do so well without the game mechanics arbitrarily dictating what is and is not viable (melee DPS = deadski). This is a problem I’ve identified in the game as well. I consider it symptomatic of their no-trinity approach. It also echoes into the dungeons and boss mechanics, causing things to be a little more zergy, a little more spammy, and a whole lot less fun.

Hopefully, in time, they will resolve these sorts of issue with balance tweaking and updates to the dungeons and boss-style DEs.

I can’t believe I’ve read all of this. Everything is well written. Thanks for sharing your experience. I hope you will not give up on this game yet, good luck and be patient!

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Unless you change your reward-centric mentality, you’ve pretty much gotten all you can get out of the game, IMO. All in all, I’d say you got your money’s worth. Long-term, the game simply isn’t for hard-core raiders who expect some kind of tangible, meaningful rewards that fall in line with some presumed risk vs reward standard.

Gear upgrades in a system of constant stat inflation aren’t really tangible or meaningful.

However, dungeon armor is one of the main long-term goals the game presents to players. OP hasn’t just made up this goal for himself, it’s built into the game.

That being the case, a player’s progress toward that goal being wildly unpredictable because of bugs is not a problem with player attitude (and in fact OP’s attitude is constructive despite his frustration) – it’s a problem with the coding of the game.

Wow, those who are criticizing the original poster need to read again.

Having all of your friends leave a game is a real problem. Those players who have established groups they play MMOs with aren’t going to run around solo. I have a guild of 80 players. 4 were online last night.

One of the major points he made regarding WvW is that server transfers are killing it, and he’s absolutely right. All of the major WvW guilds on my server left for one of the big three a week ago. WvW has sucked ever since. The server transfers need to stop. Maybe one transfer per week would be better.

Dungeons are over-tuned, and imo, just aren’t fun. But that’s another issue.

The token bugs are a huge problem and need to be fixed asap. They are driving players away.

I can’t believe some of you fanboys dismissing a reasonable, sensible post like the OPs Shame on you. If you drive everyone off you will be living on a ghost town. Have fun with dynamic events and WvW when there’s no one around.

Really nice write up. I’m still leveling my main. I’m currently lvl 56 so I clearly don’t play as often or as effectively as you do but; I’m having a great time with the game. I’ll hit 80 6-7 weeks in with almost zero crafting.

I think you’ve looked under the hood pretty well and all-in-all, for a game a month old, it seems to be in pretty good shape. Yes, it still needs some tweaking to keep hardcore players engaged but if AN has proved anything it’s their track record for being responsive.

Again, it’s only been a month and look at what they have already done / tried to do. I think they’ll get there sooner rather than later. I sounds like you got your money’s worth and if you hang with the game I believe that you’ll be rewarded for it.

I too read the post, you are a very dedicated gamer and thank god you understand what grammar is.

To be very blunt I think you played the game faster than they were ‘expecting.’ You have flown through the game and much of the content which in one side can be admirable. Things that will take me a year to accomplish, you have done in a month. I personally think it’s like having a high alcohol tolerance, sounds fun but needing 10 beers to get a buzz kills the fun on drinking. I may be slow but I’m still enjoying my lvl 60 Warrior on his slow run through things. By the time I get to the point you are at, they will probably have fixed most of these issues.

You have gotten to a point in the game where you need them to address issues before it’s really worth it for you to play anymore. The dungeon tokens will become drops eventually this should help with the dungeon rewards. The spies in the WvW will probably be addressed as well. The game is a bit over a month old and Anet is working out the issues with having a kitten ton more players on the game than they ever could test with. I’d say give them more time to work out the issues. They are actually pretty good about getting it done.

No offense but I’d recommend a book or a hobby like fencing, karate, or some other violent art (or that may be personal preference.) Come on back in a month and see how the game looks.

basically you powergamed a little too hard my friend, and beat 300+ hours worth of PVE content (not counting pvp content) in a month. and right now, youre trying to grind. but it’s not that kind of game. what are you “supposed” to do? WvW/spvp, or quit and wait till the next xpac hits.

dybryd.1358:

Wintyre Fraust.6534:

Unless you change your reward-centric mentality, you’ve pretty much gotten all you can get out of the game, IMO. All in all, I’d say you got your money’s worth. Long-term, the game simply isn’t for hard-core raiders who expect some kind of tangible, meaningful rewards that fall in line with some presumed risk vs reward standard.

Gear upgrades in a system of constant stat inflation aren’t really tangible or meaningful.

However, dungeon armor is one of the main long-term goals the game presents to players. OP hasn’t just made up this goal for himself, it’s built into the game.

That being the case, a player’s progress toward that goal being wildly unpredictable because of bugs is not a problem with player attitude (and in fact OP’s attitude is constructive despite his frustration) – it’s a problem with the coding of the game.

Very well put.

@Wintyre Fraust.6534
On another note…The whole “You are reward centric and play too much for my standards…. so this game isnt for you” argument is old.

Anet NEVER said this game was aimed at casual gamers only. They also have rewards in the game itself.

“tangible, meaningful rewards that fall in line with some presumed risk vs reward standard” ???

The skins and minimal stat increases that come with upgrades still fall in that standard… how do they not? Are people really so blind that they don’t see it?

If the dungeons DIDNT have these rewards…how many people would still run them that many times?

I’m not against the direction they want to take this game but at the moment it is going the wrong way. Cookie cutter builds? big problem. gear grinds and reward based? absolutely. It is obvious…

Wow that is long. Sorry didn’t read it all. Got bored and started day dreaming about pizza with Bacon and french fries with Hot sauce.
Going to get some food and play a little gw2.

Sheen.8196:

All I know is, the old MMORPGs gave you months of content at launch, even if you were playing 24-7… gw2 is innovative with the whole “done in 3 days” design.

Yes they were sub based so they had to keep you hooked for months. Welcome to forming 40 men raids, taking 4 hours (before farm mode) to clear “trash” so you could kill the 2-3 bosses worth doing in the whole instance.

The “bad side” of being a non sub based game where the designers tried to reduce necessary grinding (I don’t consider “farming good looks” as necessary for character advancement) is that as of now it’s impossible to create enough non grindy content. They just cannot create in 200 people or whatever they are, content quicker than 2M of dedicated no lifers can consume.

Why is a player’s pace his problem? If anything you should be thanking him for speeding through the game so quickly so he could point out the flaws quick enough so that by the time other folks catch up, they don’t ever have to deal with half of those bugs or flaws.

All the OP has said in his story is he’s trying to hold out, but frankly the game is throwing a lot of kitten his way, some of it due to lame exploits, some of it due to bugs. Yes, the game is still in that vanilla phase, but insta-wiping, “spies”, lack of rewards, and reward bugs, even if they are being addressed as fast as possible, still make for a demoralizing experience. He’s not saying how to fix it, through nerfing content or buffing this and that, but I think we could all agree that somethings could use a little tweak here and there.

Craven.5468:

Sheen.8196:

Craven.5468:

Sheen.8196:

All I know is, the old MMORPGs gave you months of content at launch, even if you were playing 24-7… gw2 is innovative with the whole “done in 3 days” design.

Stop your ridiculous exaggeration.

Oh it isn’t an exaggeration… i think if anyone here is exaggerating it may be you…

But given the nature of your first post in this thread… I think we sorta understand where your loyalties lie…

What? Show me a screenshot of an 80 toon with three days of play (or less) and at least some form of proof of actually playing the game (high world completion percentage, token count, decent gear, etc).

You can’t. It isn’t possible. That is precisely what exaggeration means. You exaggerated and are now denying it? Wow…

Kungen streamed it to 5000+ people… game set and match… But this is pointless, you are one of those people that wouldn’t accept the reality of it anyway, you would just change your tune and accuse them of playing too proficiently.

FarFarAway.6579:

Wow, those who are criticizing the original poster need to read again.

Having all of your friends leave a game is a real problem. Those players who have established groups they play MMOs with aren’t going to run around solo. I have a guild of 80 players. 4 were online last night.

One of the major points he made regarding WvW is that server transfers are killing it, and he’s absolutely right. All of the major WvW guilds on my server left for one of the big three a week ago. WvW has sucked ever since. The server transfers need to stop. Maybe one transfer per week would be better.

Dungeons are over-tuned, and imo, just aren’t fun. But that’s another issue.

The token bugs are a huge problem and need to be fixed asap. They are driving players away.

I can’t believe some of you fanboys dismissing a reasonable, sensible post like the OPs Shame on you. If you drive everyone off you will be living on a ghost town. Have fun with dynamic events and WvW when there’s no one around.

Token bugs are being actively worked on. Anet has rolled out two updates on this issue in the last two weeks. Did you really think that the game would be bugless and perfectly balanced upon release?

Server transfers are going away “soon”™. Doesn’t really matter what it is doing to WvW right now, the issue will be resolved as soon as free transfers are set aside and Guesting goes up. Why are you bleating about it like it’s the end of the world?

Players leaving is ultimately one of the biggest downfalls of any game. It has a dangerous snow ball effect that the OP describes very accurately. However, this game more than many others has tried to compensate for that as best they can. Don’t forget what Free server transfers were about – to help people play with their friends. Don’t forget what the guesting feature is about, to keep people playing together.

I don’t get why pointing out factual evidence of Anet busily fixing the existing issues somehow qualifies myself or others as myopic fanbois. Please, explain.

Craven.5468:

Sheen.8196:

Craven.5468:

Sheen.8196:

All I know is, the old MMORPGs gave you months of content at launch, even if you were playing 24-7… gw2 is innovative with the whole “done in 3 days” design.

Stop your ridiculous exaggeration.

Oh it isn’t an exaggeration… i think if anyone here is exaggerating it may be you…

But given the nature of your first post in this thread… I think we sorta understand where your loyalties lie…

What? Show me a screenshot of an 80 toon with three days of play (or less) and at least some form of proof of actually playing the game (high world completion percentage, token count, decent gear, etc).

You can’t. It isn’t possible. That is precisely what exaggeration means. You exaggerated and are now denying it? Wow…

Guild wars 1 and now 2 are pretty well known for the quick leveling. Its easy. Who cares.

Blasting through the levels using every shortcut possible is not playing the game. You are experiencing as little as possible while trying to race to what you perceive as “the end”. I don’t call that proficient, I call it skipping all the content.

Nothing wrong with playing that way, but there is something wrong with playing it that way and then complaining on the forums of the lack of content when you had to skip most of it using that method.

Anyone can buy their way to level 80 via crafting or blast through hearts as fast as possible. What is the point? So you can come on the forums and complain that you reached your arbitrary goal too soon?

Craven.5468:

Blasting through the levels using every shortcut possible is not playing the game. You are experiencing as little as possible while trying to race to what you perceive as “the end”. I don’t call that proficient, I call it skipping all the content.

Nothing wrong with playing that way, but there is something wrong with playing it that way and then complaining on the forums of the lack of content when you had to skip most of it using that method.

Anyone can buy their way to level 80 via crafting or blast through hearts as fast as possible. What is the point? So you can come on the forums and complain that you reached your arbitrary goal too soon?

That’s odd because there are people with 100% map completion, story completely finished, nice looking gears, who are completely bored with the game. Which is harsh, because the old mmorpgs used to give you months of content at launch.

By all means, share your opinion, but when people are bored they are bored, and it isn’t their fault they are bored when an MMORPG that promised everything but the kitchen sink, can’t keep them engaged for more than a few days or a week.

Have you considered that GW2 may just not have as much content as you think it does? Have you considered that for some proficient players, it just may offer no challenge whatsoever? How are you going to magically convince someone that breezes through all of the “challenges” that the game is challenging, when the only way they could challenge themselves is to willfully play the game inefficiently.

Lord Jaguar.9504:

I don’t get why pointing out factual evidence of Anet busily fixing the existing issues somehow qualifies myself or others as myopic fanbois. Please, explain.

What is annoying is when people blind themselves to the larger issues and try to tell people they are either overreacting or wrong. Anet did just like most other failed mmo’s have done in the past 4-5 years… They put to much in pre release and release and not enough planning for post release.

They rushed a product out knowing 80 cap was going to be hit earlier and the 80 content was practically untested. Optimization was left last minute. Class balance had huge issues where nerfs were happening but not enough attention was paid to the consequences. Buffs have come no where near as quickly as nerfs. Bot issues, bugs, and to top it all off…..communication is horrible. This doesnt surprise me though seeing as how anet had a horrible rep communicating to the playerbase during GW1.

There is absolutely no reason that these patches shouldnt be bigger. The quality of their product diminishes greatly at level 70+ and it doesn’t appear that anyone on the dev team has a sense of urgency to really do what needs to be done to fix it.

Im glad they are hiring though….again…proof that they didnt get post release much thought. The big picture was ….get the 60$ before wow expac launches. NOW they have time to sit on it.

I started playing during the head start. I’ve been exploring, crafting, completing events, doing a bit of PvP here and there, usually 5 to 6 hours per day, and I just hit level 47 yesterday.

I have no earthly idea how level 80 in 3 days is even possible, unless you power-level like a maniac, which is pretty stupid with this game IMO.

Sheen.8196:

Craven.5468:

Blasting through the levels using every shortcut possible is not playing the game. You are experiencing as little as possible while trying to race to what you perceive as “the end”. I don’t call that proficient, I call it skipping all the content.

Nothing wrong with playing that way, but there is something wrong with playing it that way and then complaining on the forums of the lack of content when you had to skip most of it using that method.

Anyone can buy their way to level 80 via crafting or blast through hearts as fast as possible. What is the point? So you can come on the forums and complain that you reached your arbitrary goal too soon?

That’s odd because there are people with 100% map completion, story completely finished, nice looking gears, who are completely bored with the game. Which is harsh, because the old mmorpgs used to give you months of content at launch.

Yes, and these individuals had far more hours played than 3 days worth (unless they skipped sleep, food and proper hygiene).

They have received their money’s worth. There is no subscription.

Craven.5468:

Nothing wrong with playing that way, but there is something wrong with playing it that way and then complaining on the forums of the lack of content when you had to skip most of it using that method.

The problem is the content is broken! I dont think anyone is complaining there isnt enough content after a month… even if it took until now for someone to hi level cap….what would have changed? seriously? what would be different?

There is no new content and the grind is only harder. The problem is the bugs…not the speed to lvl cap. They should have released a complete product with end game more thought out but now they are past release and doing clean up….they are behind….very behind.

robot.9134:

What is annoying is when people blind themselves to the larger issues and try to tell people they are either overreacting or wrong. Anet did just like most other failed mmo’s have done in the past 4-5 years… They put to much in pre release and release and not enough planning for post release.

What’s really annoying is listening to kids complain about a game like it’s the end of the world because it wasn’t perfect at launch. It’s been out ONE month. Bugs always pop up, regardless of how thorough they may have been during beta.

This happens with every single MMO launch, doom and gloom is spread throughout the forums, WoW comparisons start popping up all over, and eventually all the annoying brats leave to go back to WoW and let the niche audience enjoy their game. I can’t wait.

Stevoli.8795:

robot.9134:

What is annoying is when people blind themselves to the larger issues and try to tell people they are either overreacting or wrong. Anet did just like most other failed mmo’s have done in the past 4-5 years… They put to much in pre release and release and not enough planning for post release.

What’s really annoying is listening to kids complain about a game like it’s the end of the world because it wasn’t perfect at launch. It’s been out ONE month. Bugs always pop up, regardless of how thorough they may have been during beta.

This happens with every single MMO launch, doom and gloom is spread throughout the forums, WoW comparisons start popping up all over, and eventually all the annoying brats leave to go back to WoW and let the niche audience enjoy their game. I can’t wait.

I am with you there. I see no gain in posting repeatedly about how much you hate the game you just spent 100+ hours playing. If it took 100+ hours to learn you hated it, what the heck is wrong with you?

Surely everyone is entitled to post a good long feedback just like the OP did (awesome post). But to stick hateful trash in every post all day is beyond silly. State your feedback, and if you are done; then move on! Go enjoy another game or another activity!

Stevoli.8795:

robot.9134:

What is annoying is when people blind themselves to the larger issues and try to tell people they are either overreacting or wrong. Anet did just like most other failed mmo’s have done in the past 4-5 years… They put to much in pre release and release and not enough planning for post release.

What’s really annoying is listening to kids complain about a game like it’s the end of the world because it wasn’t perfect at launch. It’s been out ONE month. Bugs always pop up, regardless of how thorough they may have been during beta.

This happens with every single MMO launch, doom and gloom is spread throughout the forums, WoW comparisons start popping up all over, and eventually all the annoying brats leave to go back to WoW and let the niche audience enjoy their game. I can’t wait.

What’s really annoying is when a game has tons of issues, and the fans just magically assume it will all be fixed.

I remember playing the demo of this game at PAX way back in the day… I pointed out the massive performance issues on their demo computers, when players were clumped and all doing something (massive in mmo) and said that wouldn’t bode well for WvW…

I said that like every other MMO anet seems like it will struggle with having many players on the same screen at once… and boy was I right… performance issues left and right, major fps drops for people, and gluck playing wvw on the 7600gt or whatever they claimed initially that they were testing the game on.

Yet when this point was brought up on forums, fans would just magically say “oh they will fix it before launch, anet would never launch a game with those kinda issues, those are the kinda negligent mistakes that blizzard might make but not anet”

Um yea, reality is a bit different.

Excellent and engaging writing, and I sympathize to some extent.

But not wholly.

It sounds like you were playing the game in the spirit it was meant to be played during your time in Beta, and not surprisingly enjoyed it; then it seems you reverted to a more mechanistic and habitual (or perhaps more “serious”) way of playing the game when it went Live. Perhaps if you’d carried on playing the way you played in Beta – being engaged in the virtual world itself, rather than in a chase for numbers and “completion” of various sorts, things might have gone differently.

But maybe it just isn’t a game for the hardcore PvE-er in that sense. Maybe it’s just not a PvE Achiever’s game.

Whether that bodes well or ill for the game in the long run, I’m not sure. I suspect it probably doesn’t matter as much as it would in a subcription-based game (where a player needs to get an intravenous drip of content from the devs in order to justify paying a monthly sub).

Sheen.8196:

That’s odd because there are people with 100% map completion, story completely finished, nice looking gears, who are completely bored with the game. Which is harsh, because the old mmorpgs used to give you months of content at launch.

Again with this crap. Let’s try and keep in mind what that content WAS.

UO? Completely broken ecology. For the first few weeks you could barely even get a creature to SPAWN, let alone actually get a hit in before combat starved players swarmed it. There were no quests, no story, it was all sandbox, and all the toys were broken.

EQ? If you put the near constant rollbacks and server outages off to one side, what’s your content? Huge world? Check. Lots of mobs? Check. And that…was…it. Quests? Nope. Story? Nope. Events? Nope. Your content was killing mobs. And killing mobs. And killing more mobs. You can do that here, too, by the way. Yay, content!

DAoC? Hardly any functional system for RvR at launch, massive balance issues. PvE was completely halfkitten virtually no questing or story to speak of, completely unfinished and unitemized dungeons, no real rhyme or reason to anything, and no real way to get from 40-50 without one of the most absurd grinds imaginable (literally queuing to sit in the same spot for 10-20 hours at a time, farming the same spawn).

CoH? Randomized missions in a very limited set of instances against a very limited set of foes, using the same tactics over and over for every group. From level 40-50 there was so little content you had to run circuits in the sewers killing Hydras for hours on end. The “end game” was a terribly silly looking raid on an energy blob that was hilariously untuned.

AO was broken. AoC was broken. WAR was broken.

We’re really left with WoW…and I mean, it sounds silly to think of WoW as an “old MMO”, but if you’re 16-19 years old I can see why you’d feel that way. WoW, with its loot lag, with its awful Molten Core, the endless cycling through UBRS to kit out in “tier 0”, broken class balance, non-existent PvP unless you were a masochist and enjoyed doing the Southshore shuffle and/or dueling.

And hey! I liked ALL those games. Well, maybe not AoC, but ALL THE REST OF THEM. I loved some of them. EQ might be my favorite game of all time. But you? You are talking a bunch of rubbish when you suggest they were all bursting at the seams with “content”. Standard, revisionist history crap. And I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts if any of those games were released today you’d be one of the talking heads sneering at how bad they were and predicting their imminent doom, because that’s how you roll.

TLDR – Forum mushrooms show no perspective on history of genre, as usual.

A good read Sir.

I’m glad you’ve been having a good time. I feel that a number of people share your concerns and frustrations. I also feel that these are issues that will be addressed in time. Hopefully sooner, rather than later.

SpectacularYak,

Thank you for spending the time to write all that. It seems so many forget the reality of the past.

I liked the OP, a good read, not too terribly hyperbolic.

A thought that’s relevant:

WvWvW “skill”
WvW is not the skill portion of pvp in GW2. It’s a big sandbox where people can play with whatever approach they like. It’s not intended to be balanced or fair. People who buy gold will have an edge, people with better gear will have an edge, and spy/sabotage is definitely part of war. If someone wants to go there and fight wolves, that’s their perogative. If someone wants to devote an account for spying, that’s their perogative.

There is a skill-based pvp system in GW2, but it’s based on small teams. If you’re looking for quality gameplay, that’s a place you can control it.

Oh i’m sorry were people done with EQ/UO/AC1 within 3 days having done all of the major things there were to do in the game?

Oh they weren’t? Oh ok thanks….

I enjoy the fact that you tried to throw your weight around like you were some experienced MMO player, but you are talking to someone who is your senior….

The content in games like EQ = giving you places and zones to go to in a persistent world tied in to every other player on the server (no overflows here boys) with monsters of varying levels and difficulties that might allow you to solo them, or bring a huge raid to take them down.

I am sorry that WoW has brainwashed you into thinking in a way where you try to downplay how much content EQ had… but as someone who was in a top progression guild in EQ, as well as playing on Rallos Zek… I can safely say your revisionist history crap is skewed in a way to downplay the old mmos and glorify gw2.

Sheen

Oh i’m sorry were people done with EQ/UO/AC1 within 3 days having done all of the major things there were to do in the game?

UO? Using today’s knowledge base and experience? Easily. EASILY. 24 hours, maybe, if that.

EQ? You know as well as I do that hitting level cap in a reasonable span of time wasn’t possible due to hell levels. Is this discussion about leveling speed now? Because you were talking about content. And by the modern standard of “content”, EQ didn’t have ANY. All it had was mob killing. Sit on a hill, kill some mobs. Level. Sit on a new hill, kill new mobs, level. I loved the game. I talk to THIS DAY about essential elements of the experience that have been lost in the translation from EQ to the more modern MMOs. But honestly, if I had to play EQ today? With sense direction, and XP loss, and hell levels, and the camping? I’d bin it almost immediately. The genre has moved on.

Sheen

I enjoy the fact that you tried to throw your weight around like you were some experienced MMO player, but you are talking to someone who is your senior….

You don’t act like anyone’s “senior”. I’ve honestly not met or interacted with any adults outside of their very early twenties who express themselves the way you have, and I CERTAINLY haven’t met any adults who use their lengthy experience in MMOs as some kind of podium to stand on. I’ve played a lot ofkittenvideo games in my life, but I never actually thought it was something to go around boasting about. And I don’t use it as a platform from which to abuse the No True Scotsman fallacy, either. So…

Sheen

The content in games like EQ = giving you places and zones to go to in a persistent world tied in to every other player on the server (no overflows here boys) with monsters of varying levels and difficulties that might allow you to solo them, or bring a huge raid to take them down.

I’m not sure where this “tied in to every other player” stuff is coming from, it’s a strangely poetic way of saying “you got to do a camp check 5 seconds after entering a zone”. Of all the things to feel nostalgic for in older MMO gaming, that’s a pretty curious one.

Sheen

I am sorry that WoW has brainwashed you into thinking in a way where you try to downplay how much content EQ had… but as someone who was in a top progression guild in EQ, as well as playing on Rallos Zek… I can safely say your revisionist history crap is skewed in a way to downplay the old mmos and glorify gw2.

Not at all. EQ was my favorite MMO of all time. Then UO. Then, possibly, WoW. I like a lot about GW2. Specifically I like it right now, in large part BECAUSE it’s not aping what have become increasingly stagnant conventions. I find it really weird that someone who played EQ way back in the day would actually come to a forum and waffle about content depth with a straight face though, because maybe 1 in 100 people would call what passed for content depth in the late 90’s acceptable by today’s standards.

Arazel.4185:

ITT: OP played some random MMOs that no one cares about and thinks he’s an experienced MMO player.

FYI OP, there are people here who have been playing MMOs for over a decade, myself included. Don’t you think people who have actually “been there, done that” have a better understanding of the genre as a whole? Lots of us were in top guilds in different games over the years. Your limited experience means nothing.

Well that’s not very nice. He was just giving us a bit of information on his past.

It’s not like he rolled up and said, “lol, this game sux lol.”

With all due respect…. good riddance. Players like you are what destroy a game for the vast majority. You paid 60 euro’s, completed the entire game in less than a month, and moved on. I’ve been playing for less than an hour a day on average since launch, and I’m very happy this game follows my pace.

Again, with respect to the OP’s lifestyle, but I do not, and want not, play videogames for 10-14 hours a day anymore and I certainly wouldn’t be proud of it. Back in puberty I used to play hundreds of hours a week but, again, I was never proud of it as the OP claimed, I just play games because it is fun and back then I used to have a lot of time.

Honestly, I’m the kind of person who’ll be spending money in the gem store past the first 150 euros for the CE box. He won’t, because the elitist mentality forbids such travesties. Also people who game for 14 hours a day can’t earn such disposable income to spend on gems, without judging.

To reiterate … good riddance. The gaming community consists of 99% casuals and 1% of self acclaimed “hardcore” playing 14 hours a day. I’m bloody glad at least on game caters to this 99%.

Totally agree with this. There is more and more things popping up each day that they need to fix/work on. I have heard and agree with for the melee classes (professions) they are broken, melee just doesn’t work at all you might as well go range.

I appreciate the time and the thought you put into your write up – it’s not my experience with the game, but it was an interesting read. And shame on the folks who insist on exhuming the “this isn’t WoW vs. Wow is better” dead horse and beating it again in every thread that has something the least bit critical in it.

It’s rough when the folks you play with move on to another game and dealing with the clueless in WvW is always frustrating. The nice thing about no subscription is you can put the game on the shelf and come back after some issues have been resolved without having to fork out any more money. The dungeon token problem is a big one, and explains why so many folks at 80 are unhappy. I’m hopeful it will be fixed soon.

I play too many games to be as hard core as you are, so most of the issues that need fixing aren’t affecting my fun yet. I’m 72ish and have yet to step foot in Orr or get any crafting skill above 250. What have I been doing? Honestly, I couldn’t tell you but I’ve been having a blast doing it

Good post. Thanks for taking the time to really explain your experience.

My response though is the same I have for the all the ‘not enough content’ posts we see. You play really fast bro. You put in a lot of time and you intentionally skip content in favor of efficiency (for example – power leveling that warrior with crafting and speed runs vs conventional play).

There is nothing wrong with this style of play, but you shouldn’t be surprised when you run out of stuff to do.

ANet has a really good track record as far as fixes and updates to their game. I used to go months and months without touching GW1, then see an interesting update go through, come back and play the hell out of it for couple weeks. So if you’ve done all the PvE, and don’t care for PvP, go play something else and we’ll see you again in a few months.

tl;dr

But let me give you my perspective.

The words “hardcore” and “gamer” should never be used together. It’s a freakin’ game. It’s not a second job, it’s not like you get bragging rights of any sort of accomplishment. You play games to relax after you have accomplished something in real life.

Seriously, do you want to be lying on your deathbed and have your major life accomplishment be “I was top DPS in X game”?

the OP has legit issues need addressed… he like me wants to like the game but are aspects of the game are just turn offs. As GOOD as GW2 is… i have to ask myself… is it the game for me? right now the answer is no it isn’t… i can get same experience from GW2 from DCUO with out paying a dime, with better voice acting and story progression, and can get same " costume " grind, and arguably a deeper combat system. About only issue i have with DCUO is stat inflation…

Saddly as much as i WANT to like this game… i’m not sure i will ever be able to enjoy it because are core design choices i just dont care for. Does that make the game bad? no… just proves that GW2 is a niche game wont appeal to everyone.

I want to thank you all for posting your feedback and opinions. Positive or negative, everyone is entitled. To further add, on my thief, I never once skipped a cut-scene or did an event just because I saw the orange circle. As I said, I was always intrigued by the story line and how each of the events do have an outcome on the world, small or large. I never meant to “boast” or “brag” about my credentials. Listing them only to show that I am a mechanically sound and dedicated player. To this day, I have yet to even think about playing WoW. It just doesn’t appeal to me, as I enjoy games with a solid backbone and storyline. Many people have suggested I should take a break and come back in a month or so, when everything is fixed and up to par. That is exactly what I want to avoid. I have spent plenty of time fighting and defending for this game, trying to keep guildies and other people I have met across Tyria from taking a break or leaving and if I join them in leaving, the fight would have been for nothing.

With all said, I want to thank you all again for taking the time and posting your feedback and opinions. With your positive posts, I feel my love for the game has grown a little more. It has definitely given me more motivation and will power to stick around and weather the storm.

IMO the fanboys in this post will end up being the ones who kill this game. Ignoring whats wrong with the game and telling those that have progressed faster then you that they are doing it wrong will fix nothing.

I myself am in 4 guilds whos members range from 20-220 members and in the last week I have seen at most 4-7 people on in each during prime time.

@Colonel Kernel.7506
tl;dr
But let me give you my perspective.
The words “hardcore” and “gamer” should never be used together. It’s a freakin’ game. It’s not a second job, it’s not like you get bragging rights of any sort of accomplishment. You play games to relax after you have accomplished something in real life.
Seriously, do you want to be lying on your deathbed and have your major life accomplishment be “I was top DPS in X game”?

The words “too long” and “didnt read” should never be used together. It makes all your subsequent comments and views lack substance and irrelevant.
Serious, do you want to be lying on your deathbed and have your major life accomplishment be “tl;dr”?

I’d say cut your time back.

GW2 has tossed a lot of standard grindy stuff. You no longer have to grind out two dozen dailies to get BiS gear to prep for raiding, you no longer have to grind out stuff for flasks, or massive money for repair bills (well, not too much), or a huge amount of time and effort to get the new crafting recipes, and so on. You can pretty much jump into whatever content you want with minimal preparation, and I think a lot of players aren’t used to that.

I see people saying how most of their guild is offline now that it’s been a few weeks. So? Pick your times when you want to do something, get together, and go do it. You don’t HAVE to spend every waking moment in the game to get your subscriptions worth. My guildmates might not be around for most of the week, but we still get together Friday nights for some serious WvW action, for as long as seven hours, and we have a blast doing it.

For the people that want the grind, the gear treadmill, and the trouble/drama/sense of achievement that comes with coordinating raids, WoW hasn’t gone away. And I’ve got nothing against that. But I’m getting a bit older and I no longer have the time I did in college to blow on MMOs, so GW2 suits me just fine.

And hey… if your hardcore group moves on to something else, what stops you from playing the bits of GW2 you enjoy a few hours a week with a new guild on the side?

tribeca.3729:

IMO the fanboys in this post will end up being the ones who kill this game. Ignoring whats wrong with the game and telling those that have progressed faster then you that they are doing it wrong will fix nothing.

I myself am in 4 guilds whos members range from 20-220 members and in the last week I have seen at most 4-7 people on in each during prime time.

I call bs on your guilds. Also the “fanboys” are pretty much right when it comes to what they are saying. Endgame posts are pointless, you were told what it was going to be like, you ignored it and bought the game anyway and then complained. Blind ignorance. Endgame complaints are falling on deaf ears because there is endgame but people want to grind in order for them to notice it. Its pretty sad really that these people are conditioned my other MMOs to do this. This is the future. It allows you to have a life, and have fun. Not do the same thing 24/7.

to the OP: dude, you are a master gamer and a great writer! But, like a few others here I think you may have a sense of perspective slightly off-kilter due to your massive experience!

You paid $60 for a game that enterained you for hundreds of hours… as opposed to a $10 movie ticket for about 2 hours of entertainment (for instance).

Zen time, brother… zen time…

Please keep this discussion productive and friendly. Else wise this topic will be locked.